Celebrity Duets: Five Perform

(S01E04) Folks, it's a late night once again, so I'm going to get to the show quickly. Right after these few announcements. First, it was revealed at the beginning of Celebrity Duets that two contestants will be eliminated this week (one of them probably being Cheech Marin, but, heck, I've been wrong so far), leaving three for the remainder of the finale. Next, the celebrity with the fewest votes last week was Carly Patterson. I was sure it was going to be Cheech!

And now, let's get to the program. As soon as I mention this one thing. I want to thank my lovely wife, friend and partner to me for these last 9 years and mother to our four lovely children, for assisting me with this week's reviews. I was unavailable for some of the competition and she stepped right in to assist.

Finally, let's get to the duets. Oh, I wanted to say that I liked that they finally gave the duets more time to perform their songs (now that they're down to five celebrities) and the introduction of duet partners within the songs went much smoother this time around. I also liked that host Wayne Brady threw first judges' comments to David a few times.

Okay, here we go for real this time.

1. Jai Rodriquez and a trim Patti LaBelle: Once again, Jai had plenty of energy and hit the mark with his performance. If he isn't part of the final two I'll be extremely surprised. As to what the judges thought? Marie Osmond thought he 'smoked it', David Foster said he did great, and (sigh) Little Richard said Jai 'don't make me scream like a white woman.' Ohhkay.

2. Lucy Lawless and Richard Marx: Lucy is getting better each week. She has the stage presence as well as the talent and she may be one of the top three. Marie agreed that she did well, but commented that physical contact is welcome in duets, Little Richard said 'The beauty is still on duty' and David said when Lawless picks the right song she hits the mark.

3. Hal Sparks and Dee Snider: Last week Hal was on the bottom two, which is surprising since I thought he did well in his previous performance. This week, resplendent in leather pants and, I could swear, eyeliner, he got to sing with the former leader of Twisted Sister. I thought that it was the best performance of the evening for its energy. Marie thought it was good but there was just a tad too much screaming. Little Richard said something but I couldn't decipher it because I left my English-to-Little Richard dictionary in another room. David said Hal was a better singer than he showed and he wanted to prove it by bringing Sparks to his studio.

4. Cheech Marin and Al Jarreau: I like Cheech, and I thought it was pretty gutsy that he sang a jazz number with Jarreau. But, why is he still on this show? He was out of tune in many places, and missed some of the lyrics in others. I thought that it was one of his worst performances, but at least he enjoyed it. The judges were left speechless. Marie deferred her comments to David, while Little Richard shouted "Woooo!" a few times and told Cheech that he helped invent rock n' roll (which we already heard him say when talking to Hal Sparks). David said Marin had "balls", in a good way, to sing the song that he did, mostly due to the fact that Foster had written the tune.

5. Alfonso Ribeiro and Chaka Khan: It was Alfonso's birthday, and he celebrated by singing a terrific duet. While Hal Sparks and Dee Snider had the best energetic performance, I thought that this was the best duet by far. All of the judges agreed, including David, who wrote the song that Alfonso and Chaka performed. When you saw David telling Alfonso that he was a really, really good singer you could see something in his face telling Ribeiro that he was going to go far.

So, I know Alsonso and probably Jai are going to be in the top two. Who's going to be third: Lucy or Hal? Let me know tomorrow. I'm going to bed.